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Organist

Stuart Whatton

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(4.9)Read all 23 reviews
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About Stuart

Versatile church musician, performer, composer, teacher & arts administrator. Encore laureate for Most Booked Organist 3 years running!
Organist
London
Verified profile

Stuart Whatton’s musical education began at Canterbury Cathedral Choir School and took him via the King’s School Canterbury to University College Oxford, where he was organ scholar from 1981 to 1984. After 14 years in the Civil Service, including two years as Private Secretary to the Attorney General (his original degree having been law), he decided to follow his heart into music full-time, and this led to a B.Mus with 1st class honours from King’s College London, where he also won the Purcell Prize. Following PGCE studies at Cambridge, Stuart spent the best part of a decade in full-time educational settings, running school music departments in Dorset, Essex and Scotland, before diverting into a more freelance musical career. A Fellow of both the Royal College of Organists and the Royal Society of Arts, Stuart has been Director of Music at Esher Parish Church since 2011, where concert projects over the past year have included complete performances of Beethoven’s oratorio Christ on the Mount of Olives and Karl Jenkins’ The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace; this summer he will be conducting a combined choirs performance of the Mozart Requiem, with visiting instrumentalists from the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. Stuart is also Head of Keyboard at the Jonas Foundation UK, a charity offering free music tuition to inner city children. Since 2015 he has been Artistic Director of Music-at-Hill, one of the longest established concert societies in central London (now based at the Poets’ Church of St Giles-in-the-Fields) and prior to the pandemic he curated the St Lawrence Jewry Summer Music Festival at the Lord Mayor’s Church in the City of London. During his time in the capital, Stuart has been Assistant Organist to the Parish of Waterloo, Organist of the Ealing-based Questors Choir, and Director of Music at St Matthew’s Church, Southwark. His varied performing exploits have included appearing in a jazz piano sketch on Channel 4’s Banzai!, accompanying an international youth choir at a plenary session of the United Nations in Geneva, and performing at the Opening Ceremony of the 2012 London Olympics as part of Danny Boyle’s “cast of thousands”. For the past two years running he has earned a commendation from Encore for being their most frequently booked organist, and his more recent engagements for them have included playing at Oxford’s Sheldonian Theatre for the Opening Ceremony of the European Transplant & Dialysis Games, as well as being house pianist for a Harry Potter murder mystery evening at a pub in Kilburn, as a result of which he has become an expert on scary chords!

Encore badges
Most booked musician of 2021!
Lightning fast responses
Average response time under 2 hours
Saved the day!
Booked for an Encore gig with less than 24 hours’ notice
Member of the Encore community forum
Most booked musician of 2022!
7th Anniversary
This act has been working with Encore for over 7 years
25 gigs
Pro: 25 bookings through Encore
Musicianship
Genres:
Christmas, Traditional church music, Classical, Baroque, Classical crossover, Contemporary classical, Early music, Fanfare, Film / TV music, Medieval music, Musical theatre, Opera, Renaissance, Marching, Easy listening, Light music, Avant garde, Experimental, Contemporary Christian, Military, Jazz, Barbershop, Ragtime, World music, African music, Afrobeat, Arabic, Argentinian, Armenian, Asian music, Australian music, Balkan, Bavarian oompah, Bollywood, Bossa nova, Brazilian music, Calypso, Caribbean music, Choro, Cuban music, Cumbia, Flamenco, French music, German music, Greek music, Hawaiian music, Indian music, Italian music, Jewish music, Klezmer, Latin, Mariachi, Merengue, Polish music, Polka, Polynesian music, Reggae, Russian music, Salsa, Samba, Scottish music, Ska, Skiffle, Spanish music, Tango, Blues, Latin jazz, Jazz fusion, Dixieland, Traditional English folk
See all genres
Instruments:
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Event types:
Church service, Wedding, Wedding proposal, Funeral / Memorial service, Hotel / Restaurant event, Bar / Club / Venue event, Private event, Corporate event, Charity event, Concert, Theatre / Show, Cruise, Burns night, Birthday party, Christmas party, New Year's Eve
See all event types
Other skills:
Arranger, Composer, Orchestrator, Transcription, Fluent sight-reader, Repetiteur, Instrumental teaching, Theory teaching, Composition teaching, Accompanist
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Stuart's Prices

Note: prices may vary based on travel distance. For an exact quote, click “Check availability”.

Standard Prices
Performance durationPrice
Short performance (up to 15 min)£60
Up to 1 hour£160
Up to 2 hours£240
Up to 3 hours£300
Stuart
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4.9 out of 5
20 verified reviews
Satisfaction
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5.0
Professionalism
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5.0
Communication
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4.9
Punctuality
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5.0

Stuart's Reviews

From Encore customers:

PP
Philip P
1 month ago
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4.5 out of 5

Very good

Reply from Stuart
1 month ago

It's been interesting working with you, Philip, and we've still got a large part of this adventure ahead of us!

SS
Sarah S
4 months ago
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5 out of 5

Stuart was a joy to have play both the organ and piano at our wedding. His talent, adaptability, willingness to try totally new things (including some transcribed house music on the organ!) left us in awe and so, so pleased we chose him. Would highly recommend - and what a lovely man too. Thank you!

NS
Nicky S
4 months ago
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5 out of 5

Stuart was fantastic, modifying the piece we wanted for my Mum's funeral so that they sounded their best on an organ rather than the original piano version. A great job - thank you Stuart.

Reply from Stuart
4 months ago

Thank you for the opportunity to be part of Monday's gathering and help give your mum the most appropriate possible send-off. Rendering Chopin and Scott Joplin on the crematorium organ was an interesting challenge, but I think they sounded reasonably convincing in the end!

JC
Joe C
6 months ago
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5 out of 5

Excellent!

Read all 20 reviews

From other customers:

E&
Eliza S
8 years ago

Thank you so much for all your help in organising the music and gospel choir for our wedding on 9th July!! The service was absolutely perfect and we can’t thank you enough for making our day so special.

N&
Nicola S
7 years ago

We just wanted to say the biggest thank you for the beautiful organ playing and bell ringing at our wedding last Friday - it made for such a special day.

Read all 3 reviews